


I'm with you

by ishipitliketheotakuiam



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Injury, M/M, Sharing Body Heat, post episode 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipitliketheotakuiam/pseuds/ishipitliketheotakuiam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance and Keith have crashed on a frozen planet, Keith is injured and Lance is freezing. It may be a while before help comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm with you

Lance’s head was pounding. Every muscle in his body ached from the impact of the crash.

It was then that he wrenched his eyes open, memories of being torn from the castleship and into the wormhole flooding back into his thumping brain. Where was he? Where were the others?

Lance glanced down at himself, moving his arms and legs to check for any major injuries. Apart from the occasional cut or bruise, Lance had managed to escape the crash relatively unharmed. He hoped it was the case for the rest of his crew.

Sluggishly, he reached out for the controls to his lion. The screen flickered back to life as Lance touched the panels and he let out a huge sigh of relief. His eyes focused in on what he was seeing on the screen.

The blue lion appeared to have crashed into a huge pillar of ice. 

Lance could feel the panic starting to rise within him. He was stranded on a completely foreign planet, a planet which looked to be winter-all-year-round. The blue paladin reached up to take off his helmet. It didn’t look broken and there were no visible cracks, so why wasn’t it picking up any signals from the rest of the crew? 

Lance yelled out in frustration. He shoved his helmet back on, ignoring the dull, insistent pounding in his head and clambered outside of his lion.

The first thing he noticed was that it was bitterly cold, the chilly air seemed to reach beneath his very skin. All that he could see for miles was stacks of ice and a barren wasteland made up entirely of snow. Lance climbed up onto his lion for a better look, for anything that could help him on this frozen planet.

A glimpse of red buried beneath the snow made him gasp with shock. He slid down off of Blue and ran towards the giant lump of red metal, half hidden in white. 

He had a stitch when he finally reached the red lion and he doubled over, gasping for breath. The wintry air didn’t seem to be doing his lungs any good. 

“Keith!” He yelled at the lion. “Keith open up!” 

The red lion didn’t stir. Either it was too tired after the crash or Keith was too injured to answer his calls. Lance hoped it wasn’t the latter. He stumbled awkwardly around until he reached the mouth of the red lion. 

He called again and again, alarm threatening to engulf him. 

“Red, let me inside! Come on, I need your pilot, I need to see Keith!” The red lion did not respond. Lance’s fingers were completely numb and he still hadn’t managed to contact anyone.

“Do you want me to save your pilot or not?” He all but screamed. The red lion finally seemed to accept the truth of his words and opened its mouth, allowing Lance to scramble inside. He made his way to the cockpit, praying to find Keith, alive and unharmed.

“Keith!” Lance’s stomach dropped as he spotted the paladin lying on the floor, eyes closed. As much as Lance liked to tease Keith and though he always stated their rivalry to anyone who would listen, Keith included, he did care about the red paladin, just like he cared for all of his crew. It hurt him to see his friend like this. He had noticed his growing feelings of respect for all of the crew, but it always seemed to be different with Keith.

None of the rest of the crew made him nervous like Keith did, they didn’t make him blush when they smiled. 

Lance dropped to his knees beside Keith. The red paladin had a crack running across the front of his helmet. No wonder Lance hadn’t been able to pick up his location even though he was so close. Lance tugged off the broken helmet. He tried to swallow the dry lump in his throat.

Even while unconscious, Keith looked as though he was in pain, his face was screwed up, eyebrows drawn together, pinching his pale face. Lance raked his eyes over Keith’s prone body. There was a minor cut on his cheekbone but no rips or tears in his suit.

Lance bit his lip. He had to take off Keith’s suit to check if he had any bruising or breakages. First aid at the Garrison had taught Lance not to move someone if their neck was damaged or broken, but Lance had to risk moving Keith if he was going to help him. 

“Come on Keith, wake up,” 

Lance slowly began to remove the chest armour, he lifted Keith up by the shoulders and gently lowered him back down. Lance ignored the way his heart jumped as he gently slid his legs under Keith’s back to support him. He unzipped the body suit all the way down to his hips and gently tugged of the tight fabric bit by bit until he could pull Keith’s arms out.

As he pulled the smaller boy’s right arm out of the sleeve, Lance noticed that Keith’s wrist didn’t look quite right. He got the arm free from the suit and looked closer. Even upon simple observation you could tell that it was broken. Lance winced at the unnatural angle it was at. There was bruising all around the point at which Keith’s arm connected to his hand. 

He would have to deal with that when he could get back to his lion and get a first aid pack. For now, all he could do was try not to move it too much. Keith was wearing his tight black t-shirt on underneath his suit as always. Lance couldn’t see any major injuries on his arms which was a good sign. He lifted up the soft material and pressed his lips into a grimace at the sight of the heavy bruising that littered Keith’s chest. 

Lance felt useless. Keith’s ribs were probably broken or at least heavily bruised if the angry purple colour that covered most of his chest was anything to go by. Lance desperately needed Keith to wake up, they needed to get back to Blue. 

Lance brushed back the hair from Keith’s forehead and held his hand there. The red paladin was hot underneath his fingers. Keith always ran quite warm though. Lance had noticed when he slung an arm around Keith’s shoulders or was trying to land a hit whilst sparring. Hopefully Keith wasn’t developing a fever. His immune system would be quite low for a while.

Lance removed his hand, placed Keith back on the floor and sat back on his heels, thinking hard. 

“Keith, seriously I need you to wake up!  _ Idiota _ , just wake up!” Lance could feel the frustration slowly clouding his vision. He wiped away the sudden emotion. The red lion was smaller than the blue lion and had been going much faster, the crash had obviously had a much worse impact on it than on Lance’s lion. 

Right. Lance thought hard, Keith was also smaller and faster than Lance himself was. Maybe he could carry Keith back to Blue? Lance looked down at his unconscious companion and gritted his teeth.

Conscious to avoid jostling Keith’s broken wrist he bent down and slipped one arm underneath his waist and one around his shoulders. With a grunt he lifted Keith to his feet, squatted down and hauled him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. 

Keith was heavier then he looked, Lance struggled to stand up. He knew this wasn’t the best thing to be doing because of the red paladin’s ribs but it was this or bridal style. He held onto Keith’s legs with one hand and started to navigate his way out of the red lion with his other. 

As he reached the lion’s mouth he put both hands on Keith, one hand gripping his legs, the other his not broken wrist from around Lance’s shoulders.

With that, he stepped back out into the freezing tundra, face falling, knowing it would take twice as long to get back to Blue because of the comatose moron he was carrying. 

He all but collapsed, Keith laden and all when he arrived back in the cockpit of his lion. Staggering slightly, he lowered Keith to the floor until he was lying flat and toppled into his chair. He was beyond exhausted, closing his half-lidded eyes for a few minutes. 

But he couldn’t sleep yet, communication was still down and he had to patch his friend up. He reached for the first aid kit underneath his chair, wobbled on unsteady legs over to Keith and got to work.

“ _ No puedo creer que _ , I can’t believe _ you,  _ running after Zarkon like that,” Lance muttered as he dabbed some weird Altean ointment onto the various cuts and bruises on Keith’s body. 

“You had everyone worried,  _ I  _ was worried! I mean, who do you think you are,  _ somos un equipo _ !” 

He found himself slipping back into spanish whilst doing so and his headache seemed to have cleared. Maybe it had been the icy breeze outside.

Lance dabbed some more ointment onto the cloth he was holding, slowly moving it up towards Keith’s face. He brushed it carefully against the cut lying across the red paladin’s cheekbone. It was odd, seeing an expression other than anger, frustration or annoyance on Keith’s face. Lance found that his eyes were drawn to the way Keith’s lips were parted slightly, to the shadows underneath his high cheekbones, cast there by the light in the cockpit. 

Suddenly Keith’s eyes shot open and he wrenched his body up into a sitting position, almost killing Lance in the process. Lance’s heart thumped wildly in his chest, a mixture of emotions swirling around inside of him. The most prominent one being relief.

“Keith, whoa whoa calm down! It’s me, Lance!”

Keith’s breathing slowly evened out and he met Lance’s eyes. Confusion evident in his gaze.

“Lance? Where are we? What are w-SHit, holy quiznack!” Keith had tried to lean on his right wrist, the broken one. He was gasping for breath now that the pain of all his injuries was clear to him. 

Lance snapped out of his trance and pushed the red paladin back down onto the ground with both hands. Keith fought but was to weak to remain sitting and let himself be lowered back down to the ground. 

“First off, you have to stay calm,” Lance looked at the injured boy beside him who nodded, his lips pressed into a tight line, pain written all over his usually stoic face.

“I’ve no idea where we are, communications are down, you have a broken wrist and possibly broken ribs, it’s not exactly an ideal situation but at least we’re together,”

Keith’s face remained exactly the same. He slowly closed his eyes. Lance panicked, shaking him by the shoulders.

“No way! You’re not doing this to me again, Keith!” Keith’s eyes shot open.

“Lance cool it, I’m not going to leave you alone in this mess, I was just resting,” Lance breathed out a sigh of relief and flopped against the wall of the cockpit. It was only then that he began to realise just how cold the cockpit had become. Bringing his knees up to his face and resting his arms on them.

“Are you ok?”

Lance looked up. Keith was watching him from the floor, biting his lip.

“I’m fine,” Keith frowned.

“Ok, so I’ve been better, we both have! I’m just tired, n-nothing a year long sleep couldn’t f-fix,” Lance laughed at the expression of the red paladin’s pale face. The cold was slowly seeping in from outside the blue lion.

“We would be warmer if we were in Red,” Keith mentioned unhelpfully. The shorter boy was trying to drag himself with one arm to sit next to Lance against the wall. 

“Hey stop m-moving!” Lance scolded Keith, getting up and helping Keith stand up, throwing one of the red paladin’s arms around his shoulder. They sat down side by side, backs pressed against cold metal. Lance wrapped his arms around himself, drawing his knees up once again. 

The silence that fell between them was heavy with unspoken questions. 

“They’re fine, all of them,” Keith spoke up suddenly. Lance stopped shivering for a second to look at Keith. Said paladin was staring straight ahead, seemingly unaffected by the biting cold. 

Lance knew Keith well enough by now to know that, although his face was impassive, he was worried. He could tell by the tenseness that had developed in his shoulders, by the way he wouldn’t meet Lance’s eyes.

Lance smiled and nudged his shoulder against Keith’s.

“Allura will f-find us soon, c-communications should be b-back online in a few ticks!”

“You’re cold,” Keith stated bluntly. Lance wrinkled his nose at Keith’s natural ability to not feel the cold.

“Thanks captain obvious, is there anything else you’d like to add?”

Keith hesitantly wrapped his left arm around Lance’s shoulders, pulling him against his side. Lance pointedly ignored the way his heart seemed to flip flop and hitched a smirk onto his face.

“If you wanted to touch me so badly you could’ve just asked,” 

Keith glared at him and let go.

“Fine, good luck warming yourself up,” Lance groaned. He disregarded the alarm bells going off inside his head as he stood up, pushed Keith away from the wall by the shoulders so he didn’t touch his ribs and settled down behind the red paladin.

Keith’s brain was working to slow to properly register that he was basically sitting in Lance’s lap. Lance stretched out his legs either side of Keith and pulled the shorter boy to his chest, ignoring the sirens going off inside his head and the blush he was sure was present on his cheeks. 

He pressed his face into the warmth of Keith’s back, awaiting the other paladin’s reaction.

“Lance?” 

He was sure his response was somewhat muffled because of the way he was hiding his face between Keith’s shoulders. “Yeah?”

The response of ‘What the actual fuck are you doing?’ that he had anticipated never came. Instead, Keith made a small humming noise at the back of his throat and leaned back into Lance. 

Lance dared to lift his face, a small smirk tugging at his lips when he saw how red Keith’s ears had gone. The great Keith was flustered, and it was Lance’s doing! He felt confident enough to wrap his arms around the shorter boy’s waist, pulling the red paladin with him as he leaned against the wall behind him. The good thing was that he was now a hell of a lot warmer wrapped around Keith. He opened his mouth to tell Keith the great joke he had just thought of.

“Shut up,” said a rough voice from in front of him. Lance pulled a face even though he knew Keith couldn’t see it.

“I didn’t say anything!” 

“You were about to,” Lance grumbled to himself. Was he really that transparent? A comfortable silence fell inside the blue lion’s cockpit. Bickering with Keith had drawn his mind away from the things he had been thinking about and all the problems they currently faced. 

Lance had no way of telling the time, he didn’t know if it was night or day on this planet, heck, he didn’t even know if this planet  _ had _ a night or day, but before he knew it, his eyes had drooped shut, the warmth that Keith provided was insulating them both from the cold, and he was so tired

“-ance, Lance! Lance can you copy? Lance answer me! Lance!” Lance’s eyes shot open. His helmet was buzzing, Pidge’s voice coming out through the speaker inside. He had no idea how long they'd been out for. Keith was stirring slowly, he had slid down whilst they were sleeping and was now trying to prop himself back up with one hand, cradling his broken one in his lap.

Lance scrambled up and shoved on his helmet. 

“Pidge! Pidge is that you? I copy, I can hear you!”

“Lance, thank god you’re ok!” Utter relief flooded through Lance’s body. 

“Pidge, where are the others? Has anyone else made contact?” Lance waited with baited breath for Pidge’s reply, crossing his fingers tightly.

“Shiro’s with me, Hunk was picked up by Allura and Coran a while ago, we haven’t been able to contact Keith yet though,” 

“Keith’s fine, he’s with me,” Lance almost cried with happiness, everyone was ok, they had managed to make it out of Zarkon’s base alive. He turned to look at his companion, who smiled softly at him, for once. Lance turned around to hide the redness across his cheeks. He cleared his throat and addressed Pidge again.

“Any chance you could come and pick us up?” He heard Pidge laugh softly at something Shiro said.

“Sit tight, I’m getting your co-ordinates as we speak,”

When Lance was sure his face was its normal colour again, he walked over and sat down next to Keith who’s face was a picture of alleviation. 

“They’re ok,” Lance’s voice came out quieter than he’d expected. Keith didn’t tease him about it, but instead, answered him equally as softly.

“We’re going to be ok,”

Lance didn’t even feel cold as he shared a swift smile with Keith who’s ears turned the faintest red.

“Yeah, _ ya sabia eso, porque estoy contigo _ ,”

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to write a lil fic about these two dorks, because i just finished the series!  
> the spanish translations are:  
> Idiota - idiot  
> No puedo creer que esto - I can't believe this  
> somos un equipo - we're a team  
> ya sabia eso, porque estoy contigo - I already knew that, because i'm with you  
> GOOGLE TRANSLATE WAS USED HEAVILY IN THE MAKING OF THIS FIC  
> (please tell me if my spanish was waaay off)  
> These two idiots should just get together already ಥ_ಥ  
> Comments and Kudos make my day! A kudos a day keeps the writers block away haha...


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